Reliable and cost-effective sampling methods are critical to the development of monitoring systems for pest management and can enhance research activities that address issues in population ecology and population dynamics. Validation and evaluation of these plans are central to development and implementation in the field. Sampling plans are often developed from a restricted range of observations from a small area, but are then used over a wide area representing a novel array of environmental and agronomic conditions.

Sets of tools for sample plan evaluation have recently been developed. These Monte Carlo simulations can be used to evaluate sampling models during the developmental phase; however, they may not be adequate for testing model validity and performance under field conditions. This is primarily due to the assumption of an underlying statistical distribution (e.g., negative-binomial, normal) which may not adequately represent the actual distributions of insects in all instances. Here we present a method in which actual field data is resampled to evaluate sample plan performance. We originally developed DOS-based computer software for this purpose. The full functionality of this original prgram is now available as an Excel Plug-in in RVSP V.2 compatible with Excel 2003 and 2007.